Emma Barry

Thank you!!

She’s left us no choice. It’s time for Isaac Chotiner to interview Bari Weiss.

happy happy release day, Charlotte. how autumnal is this cover???

happy release day!!!

cool; thank you!

this looks great. thank you!

I haven't! I'd heard of it but assumed it was like Nextdoor (derogatory). it's legit?

I'm in Hampton Roads. the Daily Press, the metro area newspaper, is terrible. I'd wondered if the Richmond paper was any good, but now I'm intrigued by The Mercury. mostly, I'm looking for good coverage of state politics.

I'm a sustaining member of my local NPR/PBS station, but while they do some local news gathering, it's not enough to replace the WaPo, sadly.

Virginia friends, my WaPo subscription is ending (and obvs I'm not renewing it). My local paper is terrible; is there a better outlet I could subscribe to for VA news?

the end of an era!

it's so sad. I used to love the Post so much, and I've had a digital subscription for like a decade+. but no more.

is Robin Givhan still there? if so, she's the last one standing.

he's basically one of the only legacy journalists/columnists who were still there. the writing was on the wall.

wow. my subscription ends in a week or so, and honestly, even setting aside WHY I canceled, literally nobody whose work I like is still there. why on earth would I ever consider staying?

I have seen this Hope/Crosby road to film!

I have a distinct memory of sitting in the microfiche/microfilm room at the New York Public Library, and some (clearly lost) tourists came in and snapped pictures of the researchers. we must have looked like medieval monks making illuminated manuscripts or something.

you are absolutely not the only one!

I'm sending good thoughts!

yup, agreed.

please kool-aid man in!!

I would guess that your students probably have struggles reading in English that are then amplified by reading in a second language.

I generally do too, but sometimes, understanding that the theme/message is contrary to the events, and that the piece is ironic/comic/indirect is just too key to avoid discussing it.

sigh. this is so relatable!

precisely.

so when reading instruction shifted to primarily short passages of non-fiction and when reading for fun/joy was deemphasized, in and out of school, students lost an avenue to indirectly pick up that skill.

I definitely share your concern that students even in the recent past were not universally amazing readers. I can say that in the 12 years I've been at my current institution, I see fewer and fewer competent readers every year. my guess is that you can't learn to read for tone from non-fiction.

my kids did a few novels in MS honors, but the main focus was on shorter texts, fiction and non-fiction. I know that budget plays a role (they have textbooks but not as many classroom sets of novels), but that doesn't explain all of it.

and the assumption that everything is sincere and means exactly what it says spills over to non-fiction too. so many of my comp students will confuse the counter-argument with the argument in essays. "but it says XYZ." those words appear in the piece, yes, but then the author argues against them!

the inability to notice subtle shifts in tone is a massive issue, and it absolutely stops them from appreciating a lot of literature.

Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute!